Ainu And Okinawans In Japan example essay topic

Do you know what kinds of caste systems there are in Japan? Japan has some major minority groups. They are Burakumin, Okinawans, Ainu and Japanese-born Koreans. Discrimination against many of these groups has its origins in the imperialist and feudal periods in Japanfs history.

Japanese expanded their territory into the lands of Ainu and Okinawans. Discrimination from Japanese feudal society also exists against the goutcastsh called the Buraku. Now there are many problems that we have to consider against groups which are Buraku people, Ainu, and Okinawans in Japan. Buraku people or Burakumin are the largest population, which are discriminated since long time ago.

They are minority groups of Japanese people who are numbering around 3,000,000 in about 6,000 communities and generally recognized as poster ities of outcaste population in the feudal days. Discrimination against Buraku people has been gradually lessened in terms of living conditions, while it is still practiced in society, with respect to employment, marriage, and education. According to my study in high school, for example, in the employment case, the fact shows the average annual income is 3.8 million yen in Buraku communities. It is 1.2 million yen lower than that of non-Buraku communities. Also, a survey shows that a high percentage of Buraku women work part-time or in other unstable forms of employment in small-sized and mid-sized corporations compared with non-Buraku women. In addition, in the education case, the high school enrollment rate in Buraku communities has remained 5 to 10 points behind the national average since 1975.

The drop-out rate is also rising. The ratio of college enrollees remains sixty percent of the national average. Also, many young people from Buraku committed suicide because of a strong prejudice and discrimination. Even if they dont resort to suicide, many of them suffer from the psychological trauma.

In addition, it should be noted that discrimination in marriage usually achieved by personal background investigations by private investigative agencies. The Ainu, an indigenous people in Japan, has an estimated population of about 30,000 to 50,000, which constitutes merely 0.04% of the Japanfs total population of about 120 million. However, the area, in which the Ainu historically lived, was large, covering today fs Tohoku district of Japan proper, Hokkaido, the Kuril es and the southern part of Sakhalin, well over 30% of the whole Japanese territory. There are also problems against Ainu. According to my study in high school, for example, many Ainu women move to cities, pushed by negative factors such as escaping from blatant discrimination in their hometown, or to find an economically viable way out.

Also, since Ainu women took violence by their husbands for granted, their complaints about violence have been almost non-existent; it is only recently that they started to talk about their experiences of violence. In addition, there is a difficult situation for Ainu people as an indigenous people to live as Ainu in Japanese society, which torments Ainu men. Ainu women are the main victims. The anger of Ainu men who are discriminated against in employment or deprived of social recognition drives them to self-destroying behaviors and domestic violence.

Okinawa is located in the southern part of Japan, consisting of many islands. While it is now one of the local municipalities of Japan, it had been an independent country called g Ryukyu Kingdom until Japan invaded and destroyed it in 1879. Since then, Okinawa has been imposed discriminatory policies by the national government. There are also problems for Okinawans. For example, there were numerous cases of discrimination against women from Okinawa, in which women were hired in groups and forced into a sweatshop-like working condition.

They were unpaid or underpaid against the contract terms. Also, Okinawa has the highest sexual violence rate against women. In addition to violence from Okinawan men, Okinawan women are raped and killed by U.S. military personal. According to a newspaper from my country, g three women had been raped out of 30 households.

One became pregnant and had an abortion, and another was gang-raped by U.S. military personal, suffered psychiatric injuries, and found dead at sea, and another was raped and subsequently killed. h In conclusion, there are many problems against some groups in Japan: Groups such as Burakumin, Ainu and Okinawan. Many people are suffering from discrimination and violence. We must not ignore these problems and have to consider about them to decrease them little by little. I think that we have to make efforts one by one to decrease them.

If these problems disappear completely, everyone can live happily and become a harmonious nation.